


Chanted Loudly, Chanted Lowly

by MeansToOffend (goodmorning)



Series: Hockey RPF One-Shots [4]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Idiots in Love, Other, Polyamory, help i've stopped being able to write things other than polyamorous pining, just fucking talk to each other or something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 03:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11660994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorning/pseuds/MeansToOffend
Summary: "Not a single person in the building knows it yet, but Kuch can feel it: he and Johnny and Pally are going to be good."





	Chanted Loudly, Chanted Lowly

Before he cracked the NHL, Johnny had always thought that one day, if he made it, he wouldn't have any free time. He was fine with that, because hockey, professional hockey, playing against the best in the world and getting paid millions for it? It was like a dream for some short undrafted kid like him.

Truth be told, though, he has plenty of free time. What with long flights to the West Coast, days off for rest and maintenance, and captain-mandated "team bonding time," he spends a pretty comparatively small number of hours actually on the ice. The point is that his time off the ice is mostly not spent _alone_.

Johnny isn't, like, embarrassed about it, or whatever. He just really doesn't need to be chirped about it, OK? So what if he likes to watch the personal ads? He deserves a chance at a soulmate as much as anyone else.

But no matter how many videos he watches alone in bed and no matter how many words the people in them say, none of them ever sparks him.

\--

Pally has a few platonics from back home, Faksa and Tatar and Janus, who's already in Norfolk when he gets there, so it isn't weird when Pánik, midway through their record-breaking win streak, shouts, " _fourteen_ in a row!" and makes his skin fizzle in that oh-so-familiar way.

It gets a little weird later, when Pally says some innocuous thing or other that he instantly forgets. It makes Pánik's eyes go wide, but afterwards he tries to tackle Pally in a giant hug and they get back to normal pretty quickly.

He gets a few weird looks sometimes, from younger Canadians and Americans, when he mentions his soulmates. Honestly, hadn't any of them paid attention in school? Just because multiples happen to be rare there doesn't mean they're rare everywhere, and they certainly aren't impossible. The older guys obviously know, and Pally finds that somehow he never has to explain anything to any of the guys who do double-takes when he and Janus and Pánik lean in close and speak excitedly to one another in the odd mixture of Czech and Slovak they've cobbled together.

He's yet to spark with anyone he wants to romance when the Lightning call him up for good, but he isn't so worried about that - there's hockey to play.

\--

Kuch is called up to the NHL just after American Thanksgiving. He's 20 years old and he already knows he's staying up. His first game, his first shift, his first shot, he scores. He scores on _Lundqvist_. He feels so good it makes him wonder for a moment if Killer had sparked him, but Killer hasn't said anything. This feeling is all his own.

Still, it does feel frustrating sometimes, playing on lower lines for somewhat limited minutes. If he wanted to play only a little hockey, he could have stayed home. Kuch knows, in his head, that this is development, that everyone goes through it, that Coop knows what he's doing. It doesn't really make it less difficult.

So he keeps his head down and he puts in his first season without complaining. Marty goes, and it's sad, but Kuch can see where a space is going to open up for him in the near future.

That time comes eight games into his second season, when Coop tries something a little different with the lines. Not a single person in the building knows it yet, but Kuch can feel it: he and Johnny and Pally are going to be _good_.

\--

"...aardvark, aardwolf, Aaron's beard," the woman on Johnny's phone screen says in a dull monotone. Honestly he's kind of falling asleep already, even though he's propped up against his pillows to try to avoid it. "Abaca, abacterial, abacus," she continues, while he looks for a video he hasn't already watched. Truth be told, he's starting to think he should just do what everyone else does; pick up a lot and hope for the best.

It's not what he really wants to do, but it would definitely be better than falling asleep to _this_ every night. "Abbadon," the woman says, and Johnny exits the page.

He tries, he really does. Every time they go out, he meets people. Johnny smiles, and flirts, and goes home with them, but mostly it just depresses him. They're all really nice, but none of them is ever meant for him. Or, at least, not as far as he's aware. He could date them and maybe find out different, but he never really feels the need to know a single one of them past the morning after.

And aren't you supposed to _know,_ somehow, even before you're sparked?

\--

They're in the playoffs. They're in the playoffs and they're winning more than they're losing. They're in the playoffs and they're _good._

They're also ten seconds away from going into overtime against Montreal. Again.

But Pally's got this. He enters the zone. Kuch is trailing, but Heddy's there, jumping up on the play, and Pally hits him with the pass. Heddy flips it to Johnny at the net and Johnny flips it in, leaping into his arms. Pally jumps on his back, Kuch shortly behind, just as Johnny shouts, "Holy fucking shit, you guys, a _buzzer-beater_!"

Pally fizzles like the Tesla coil they're cellying under, and wonders.

\--

Pally is spending a lot more time with Johnny than usual. Kuch doesn't like it. He doesn't really know why until he sits himself down and realises that he's jealous. He's not really sure which one he's actually jealous of. Or maybe it's both? Either way, it's pretty easy to solve. All he has to do is spend more time with them. It's not a hard thing to do at all.

It's even less hard when they're playing against the Rangers, when Marty loses the puck on a Rags 5-on-3, when Killer gets it to Johnny and Johnny scores one. It's less hard again when Kuch hits Stammer for a one-timer on the power play, and when it fails he recovers to Johnny who doesn't get blocked. It's least hard of all when it's just "the Triplets" on ice together, Kuch feeding it royal road to Pally, Johnny picking up the rebound off the pipe and putting it in. "Fucking first ever playoff hattie!" Johnny says. He sets off for the bench. "I don't even have the fucking _words_ for this, man."

When he was young, Kuch had shocked himself turning on a lamp. He feels the same way now, arms tingling and sort of achy. It's kind of hard to focus on keeping his hand up to bump everyone's gloves.

He's not exactly sure if he should say anything to Johnny. So he doesn't.

\--

So they don't win the Cup. It sucks, a lot, but Johnny kind of feels like he won something anyway, because he and Pally and Kuch are kinda actually friends now, not just teammates. It's a little unexpected, the way it makes him feel. He'd thought there wasn't anything else he needed from a team than what he's always had in the past. These two have proved him wrong.

Hanging out with them is really fun, too. Kuch loves video games as much as Johnny does, and Pally brings Snowy to play with Reese and chirps the hell out of them from the couch he always monopolizes.

Truthfully, the thing Johnny's most sad about when the season ends is that they all have to go home. Still, they do talk a little bit over the summer.

Mostly that just makes him miss them more though.

\--

"I'm so glad you guys are back," Johnny says on the first day of camp. Pally couldn't have said it better himself. He missed them, not just Johnny but also Kuch, and his overwhelming emotion now they're back together is just that - gladness.

"I have a good feeling about this year," Pally says back, smiling when Johnny's tired-looking eyes brighten even more.

"Yes," says Kuch, who would normally stop there. He doesn't. "This year is year we win _everything_."

Pally's not even surprised when his entire body goes fizzy.

\--

Their first game of the season is the NHL's first 3-on-3 overtime. It's fun to be out there in all that space. It's fun to be out there with Vladdy, even if he can't be on the ice with Johnny and Pally. It's fun when they win. 

Despite that, Johnny is still pretty sore about the penalty shot he gave up. Bish made the save and it obviously turned out fine, but Kuch and Pally end up at Johnny's place after the game anyway. Both of them are pretending it's not to make Johnny feel better; neither of them is fooled by the other. "We thought you could use some _company_ ," Pally says when Johnny opens the door, and Kuch feels the jolt right in his heart.

Kuch keeps it cool and normal until Johnny leaves them alone. Then he turns to Pally and hisses, "How long you know? Why you not tell me?" It might make him a hypocrite. He doesn't care.

"A few months," Pally says, quietly. "And you're from Russia." And it takes Kuch a minute to get that one, but when he does...

\--

"Oh," Kuch is saying as Johnny comes back from the bathroom. They both clam up when they see him, and Johnny doesn't press.

The rest of the evening is nice, but things start to get weird with them over the next few weeks and Johnny honestly has no idea why. It's not like he's said or done anything out of the ordinary recently. It's also not like they've had much time together away from him to say anything weird to each other, he's pretty sure.

He keeps telling himself it's none of his business. It really is none of his business. But, fuck, he wants to know so badly.

Then Johnny walks in on them kissing and immediately regrets it.

\--

Being walked in on had been Kuch's idea. "Johnny sparked you also, yes?"

"You, too?" Pally had asked.

"You try to let him know, spend time with him, obvious. But we both know this not work. Johnny pay no attention. We try different."

And Pally had agreed, because he couldn't think of anything but telling him, and felt that was unlikely to be believed. Seeing Johnny's face, though, makes him wish he hadn't.

\--

Kuch kisses Pally in front of Johnny and is immediately sorry. Johnny's weird thing about soulmates is apparently much bigger and weirder than he thought. He feels needlessly cruel every time he thinks about the way Johnny's face had crumpled. He can't think of any way to make it up to him.

They still hang out, like normal, most nights. It's obvious that he's pretending, though, and that makes Kuch and Pally pretend all the same. A lonely-looking Johnny is the last thing they want to see. Again, that is.

Kuch is never one to talk much, still uncertain in English a lot of the time, but he finds himself saying more and more. He wants to spark Johnny back, he wants Pally to spark Johnny back, more than he wants anything else.

But no matter how many things he says, it never seems to work.

\--

He can give them a lot of credit for not acting like anything is different. Kuch still kicks his ass at CoD with a smile; Pally still keeps the whole couch for himself and chirps them incessantly. Johnny doesn't really want to make them feel like they can't be together in front of him, but he's still really glad they don't.

And then everything goes to shit. "Oh, shut up, _zaichonok_ ," Kuch says to Pally, teasingly. It's not the endearment that makes Johnny's hair stand on end, though. It's the spark. Johnny was just sparked. By a guy who already has a soulmate, and fuck his life so much, because _really?_

" _Nik!_ " Pally chides, looking worriedly at Johnny, and everything is so fucked because there goes the fluttery ozone feeling again. He's sparked, at last, like he's always wanted his whole life. But he's sparked with his teammates, and they're already soulmates with each other, and even his fucking spark words weren't meant for him.

Johnny excuses himself and goes to hyperventilate in the safety of his own closet.

\--

Pally doesn't necessarily think it's the best idea to knock on Johnny's closet door, but Kuch would probably do worse, so he hasn't much choice in the matter. Thus, he knocks.

"Johnny, please come out."

"Just leave me alone," Johnny says back. He doesn't sound like he's been crying - he sounds much worse than that.

Kuch is right there with him, electric blue eyes laser-focused on the closet door. Pally wants to reach for his hand, for comfort; Pally doesn't want that kind of comfort until they can include Johnny too. "Please, Johnny," he starts again, not knowing how he intends to finish. That's when Kuch chooses to interrupt him.

\--

Johnny's closet door has no lock. Kuch knows this with some certainty. He also knows that Johnny has to open the door himself or this will be useless. Most of all, he knows that Pally has no idea what he's doing right now. So Kuch will save him.

"Johnny, we know already," he says, just loud enough to be heard through the door. "We wait so long, hope to spark back." It's still quiet, too quiet, in the closet. Kuch has one more idea. "Me and Pally, we wait in living room. Come out and talk, kotyonok."

It's easy to drag Pally to the living room, to settle him on the couch and pat his knee. It's hard to wait, but they wait anyway.

And then Johnny's closet door squeaks open, and he shuffles out to the living room. He stares at them. It's a much better sign than if he refused to look at all.

\--

"This is not what I was fucking expecting," Johnny says at last.

"Which is why we didn't tell you," Pally says. "We thought you wouldn't believe it." And Johnny wants to be offended, but Pally is probably right. He wouldn't have believed it, and things would have been weird, and maybe they'd never have sparked him.

"So what do we do now?" Johnny asks, when that thought stops bowling him over.

"Same thing as always," Kuch tells him. "Plus we kiss." And Johnny hasn't really thought about it that way, but maybe they really have kinda been dating all along.

"Okay," Johnny says, grinning, and watches them smile right back at him. "Okay."

**Author's Note:**

> \- The KHL really does tend to heavily curtail the playing times of young players.  
> \- Any mentioned ages/games/scores are accurate to the RL timeline.  
> \- This was mostly an experiment in writing between the lines?  
> \- Originally there was supposed to be a bit about their last names ('Kucherov' means something like 'a coachman' and 'Palat' apparently translates to 'palace') but it didn't fit. Neither did the one about Kuch liking "House Hunters."  
> \- Multiple soulmates (including platonics) are common across Europe but rare in NA (Puritans etc) and Russia (USSR etc).


End file.
